Central Bankers

If I seem unduly clear to you," Alan Greenspan said to his political masters in the United States Congress, "you must have misunderstood what I said. " It was 1987, and the newly-confirmed chair of the Federal Reserve was elaborating on how he had "learned to mumble with great incoherence" in the short months since he had "become a central banker. " Mr Greenspan was a strong believer, in practice if not in theory ? for who could understand his theory? ? that central bankers should speak in an...

MUMBAI: Raghuram Rajan is the author of his speeches. Most of his predecessors stuck to the customary practice of asking for inputs from relevant departments and even circulating drafts to colleagues before finalising them. The end products were typically staid and sanitised — even though governors like Rangarajan could be remarkably eloquent and a few, like Subbarao (remembered for his fine sense of humour), occasionally inserted a few lines...

BASEL: Leading central bankers said on Monday that a global recovery was not only "better than expected," but was also accelerating. "We have the feeling that the global recovery is not only confirmed but has some elements, at a global level, of acceleration," said Jean-Claude Trichet, the head of the European Central Bank , speaking for central bankers who met at the Bank for International Settlements. "A number of observations, particularly in the...

PARIS: US and European central bankers are intensifying pressure on counterparts in emerging-market countries to step up the fight against inflation. Federal Reserve vice-chairman Donald Kohn on Tuesday urged countries where "rapid" economic growth is elevating prices to respond. Hours earlier, Bank of England governor Mervyn King said global monetary policy looks "a little lax". Bank of France governor Christian Noyer said the day before that "coordinated,...

NEW YORK: The minutes from the Federal Reserve's meeting last month have foreign-exchange traders wondering whether Janet Yellen has joined the currency wars. Policy makers pointed to the dollar's rising value as "a persistent source of restraint" on exports in a surprisingly dovish set of minutes published Wednesday. The greenback fell against a broad group of its peers. Central bankers from Europe to Australia have engaged this year in bouts of rate-cutting...

ISTANBUL: A major international economic organization is warning that developed countries have slowed efforts to reform their economies since the aftermath of the world financial crisis. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, a think tank dealing with the world's developed countries, says in a report that the lagging attention to reform is preventing many advanced economies from returning to the growth rates they enjoyed before the crisis. The report was...

BASEL: The global economy is recovering faster than expected, central bankers from leading nations said Monday, though they see dangers from rising food prices and other inflation in fast-growing markets . The recovery is particularly strong in emerging economies such as China, Brazil and India, according to the group of central bankers that meets in Basel, Switzerland every other month to assess the world economy....

BASEL: The global economy is "approaching" a pick-up point as positive elements that could fuel growth have yet to be priced in, G10 central bankers said on Monday. "We have a number of elements that are suggesting that we are approaching the moment where you would have a pick up," European Central Bank head Jean-Claude Trichet said in his capacity as spokesman for the G10 central bankers meeting at the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). ...

BASEL: Leading central bankers believe emerging economies are gradually dragging the world economy back to normality after a steep crisis, the president of the European Central Bank said on Monday. "At a global level... there is a confirmation of the progressive normalisation of the economy," said ECB chief Jean-Claude Trichet, speaking on behalf of the central bank chiefs. During their first quarterly meeting of the year at the Bank for International...

DAVOS: Indian-origin eminent banker Anshu Jain today said the world has become over-reliant on central bankers and it is time political leaders and industrialists do their bit to improve the global monetary situation. "The central bankers have become the new super heroes. But in some time we need to take the burden away from them and political leaders and business leaders need to share the burden" and do their bit to ease the monetary and liquidity situation,...

LONDON: Six decades ago, the US Treasury wanted to shut down the Bank for International Settlements, saying it helped finance the Nazis. Today, Jean-Claude Trichet and Ben S Bernanke are transforming the organisation into one of the world's most powerful networking clubs. With hedge funds and private equity firms pumping record sums of money around the world economy, central bankers fret that investors are taking on too much risk. As a result, the bankers are...

WARSAW: Polish central bankers said that deflation could last longer than previously expected, but stopped short of cutting interest rates due to heightened risk aversion on the international markets, minutes from the January meeting showed on Thursday. "The majority of the members of the council expressed the opinion that leaving interest rates unchanged at the current meeting was justified by the heightened risk aversion in the international financial markets,"...

BEIJING: China's yuan, or renminbi, will stay basically stable despite fluctuations, state radio cited the deputy chief of China's central bank as saying on Sunday. The yuan has been under pressure in the past month due to increased year-end dollar demand by some firms and growing market expectations of more policy easing after the central bank made a surprise cut to interest rates in November. Such easing is seen as negative for the yuan. "The...

The world's central bankers could be forgiven for thinking that things are never going to get back to normal. More than six years after the financial crisis plunged the world into recession, monetary policy looks nothing like it did before those events. Even as economists predict that the US Federal Reserve and Bank of England will finally begin to raise benchmark rates in 2015, the central banks are unlikely to push borrowing costs anywhere near pre-crisis,...

In a chat with ET Now, Madan Sabnavis, Chief Economist, CARE Ratings, shares his macroeconomic outlook. Excerpts: ET Now: The fact that the Chinese central bank and ECB are committed to print more money is because they are worried about their economic growth? Now if central bankers are worried about economic growth, why should equity markets be celebrating? Global equity markets are moving up as if it is the beginning of a new dawn, however central bankers...

PARIS: Central bankers and investors warned of mounting costs from six years of easy monetary policy even as most acknowledged the world still needs low interest rates. The downsides of cheap cash provided the dominant theme at a Bank of France conference in Paris on Friday attended by the likes of US Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen and Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda as well as Laurence D Fink of BlackRock and Allianz SE's Mohamed El-Erian. ...

If you plan to go sight-seeing to Elephanta caves in the Arabian sea, off Mumbai harbour, this weekend, you may bump into a star cast of central bankers from across the world. The Reserve Bank, which is hosting its first International Research Conference, plans to take delegates ? central bankers and regulators ? to the famed caves this Saturday afternoon, after the conclusion of the seminar. Among the top officials that we could see is John Lipskey, First MD, IMF, Prof Benjamin Friedman...

When Duvvuri Subbarao sprang a 50 basis point rate cut on an unexpected market this week, investors were delighted, as they always are by cheaper money, but a few pundits read into the announcement a veiled threat that this was the last help the government could expect from the governor of the Reserve Bank of India , until it put its fiscal house in better order. If the governor intended that subtext, it would fit into something that seems to be happening in other...

LONDON: Gold today fell for the fourth day as a stronger dollar cut demand for the precious metal. Gold lost 0.1 per cent to USD 1,293.96 an ounce. The dollar rose to a six-month high versus a basket of 10 currencies before the Federal Reserve releases the minutes of its July meeting, which may give clues on when policy makers will raise borrowing costs. Fed Chair Janet Yellen will speak August 22 at a central bankers' meeting in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Bullion typically moves...

Paul Krugman thinks Mario Draghi's biggest thinkers have got it all wrong. Speaking to a gathering of the European Central Bank's top researchers and policy makers, the Nobel Laureate said the ECB and other banks around the world need to raise the inflation targets they have clung to since the 1990s. At 2 per cent, those goals are too low and increase the risk that central banks will run out of room to cut interest rates, the so-called zero lower bound. "The intense...